City Limits: Putting the Brakes on Sprawl: A Contrary View

The World Watch's anti-suburban tome
- City Limits Putting the Brakes on Sprawl, by Molly O'Meara
Sheehan - is the usual "glass is half empty" attack on the modern
suburban life style, propped with questionable data and shaky
analysis. Consider Sheehan's observations on Portland.

Portland, Oregon:City Limits, like so many similar critiques of
suburbanites, Sheehan falls into the trap of using Portland, Oregon
as a model for the densification and anti-automobile strategies
that typify smart growth.

City Limits confuses intentions and actions with
accomplishments. Sure, Portland has pretty much stopped building
highways and has built two light rail lines, but that didn't keep
the Portland area from experiencing the largest increase in
automobile use per capita from 1990 to 1999 of any US urban area
with more than one million population.

City Limits credits Portland with a reduction in "journey
to work" travel time due to its smart growth policies, but this
finding is based upon a statistical sample that the sponsor (the
United States Department of Transportation) says is insufficient
for use at the local level. In fact, a 1999 US American Community
Survey for Portland's central county showed little difference in
journey to work travel time from 1990.1

City Limits claims that Portland's anti-suburbanization
policies have reduced local taxes relative to those of Atlanta,
which has had more market-driven growth patterns. In fact, as
Wendell Cox points out in American Dream Boundaries: Urban
Concentration and its Consequences, data to make such a
comparison do not exist in readily accessible form and were not
developed for the research on which the claim is based.

City Limits fails to note the devastating impact that
Portland's land rationing policies (urban growth boundary) have had
on housing affordability. Data indicate that housing affordability
in Portland (percentage of households that can afford the median
priced home) dropped 56 percent from 1991 to 2000, the largest
reduction of any major urban area in the nation. Portland's
homeownership rate fell as a result. This consequence of smart
growth is perhaps the most perfidious.2

Copenhagen, Denmark:City Limits also misses the boat with respect to another
of its models, Copenhagen. Copenhagen represents one of the most
stark examples of everything that World Watch opposes.

The central city of Copenhagen has bled population at a rate
competitive with that of many American central cities. From 1950 to
1990 Copenhagen's population dropped from 760,000 to 465,000,
nearly 40 percent.

Since 1960, the Copenhagen urbanized area (including suburbs)
has dropped in population 14 percent, while its land area has
expanded 24 percent.

City Limits claims that Copenhagen reduced its use of
automobiles over the past 20 years, but the data show just the
opposite. From 1970 to 1990, per capita automobile usage increased
nearly 70 percent in the Copenhagen area, more than four times the
increase rate of sprawling Phoenix. At the same time, public
transit's market share in Copenhagen declined 15 percent.

Curitiba rejected building a regional light rail or subway
system, due to the excessive cost. Instead, Curitiba relies on an
extensive system of busways, privately operated, that carry
passenger volumes substantially higher than any US light rail
system and are competitive with some of the world's best subway
systems.

America and Europe: City Limits suggests that the higher levels of
automobile use per capita in the United States are not due to
higher incomes, because US per capita income is below European
levels. This assertion is simply not true. On a purchasing power
parity basis, as calculated by the World Bank, average incomes in
the United States were approximately 50 percent higher than that of
the European Union in 1990.

Indeed, no nation in the world larger than Fresno, CA
(population 400,000) has a higher purchasing power than the average
United States citizen.

Automobile use and suburbanization are largely driven by higher
incomes. This is evident around the world, as the American Dream of
homeownership and access to automobiles have become the Universal
Dream.

In 2000, only five cities in the industrialized world reached
record level populations. All five were in North America, and four
were in the United States.

Between 1990 and 2000, 83 percent of U.S. cities with
populations of over 100,000 experienced an increase in
population.

The Costs of Sprawl:City Limits claims that suburbanization costs much more
than more compact development.

In fact the additional costs per new house over the next 25
years cited by City Lights from less dense development are
barely one-fourth the incremental increase in average house prices
in Portland over the last 10 years.

But the reality is more stark. More dense areas cost more to
build in, tend to have higher taxes, higher levels of pollution,
and a higher cost of living. Otherwise, it would cost less to live
on Manhattan's upper east side than in Atlanta's suburbs.

Smart Growth and the Quality of Life:
The more compact cities of Europe, which have been implementing
"smart growth" like policies for 50 years have:

Greater traffic congestion. The average European urban area has
twice the concentration of automobile use as in the US (vehicle
miles per square mile.)

The more concentrated European urban areas also produce, on
average, at least two times the concentration of automobile related
air pollution as American cities (part of this is because the
greater concentration of traffic results in slower and more stop
and go operation, which creates more air pollution).

Despite the more concentrated nature of European urban areas,
their shorter commute distances and greater reliance on rail rapid
transit systems, the average American living in an urban area takes
50 hours less annually traveling to work

National Home Ownership Implications of Smart Growth:Home equity represents a major source of wealth for the
nation's middle income families, with the average net worth of
homeowner households being more than 30 times that of renters
($132,100 v. $4,200 in 1998).

Although the overall homeownership rate in America reached a
record 67.8 percent last year, this rate reflects an ownership rate
of 74.3 percent among non-Hispanic whites, but only 46.8 percent
for black Americans and 46.7 percent for Hispanics.

Will green-lining replace red-lining?In recent years, Hispanic and African-American home ownership
has been rising at approximately double the rate of non-Hispanic
whites. Smart growth's higher housing prices will therefore fall
hardest on Hispanic and African-American households. The housing
cost increases that accompany growth areas would relegate thousands
of minority and other lower middle income households to permanent
renter status. History could well show that shortly after ending
red-lining, which suppressed minority home ownership rates, cities
began green-lining, through imposition of growth areas, with
virtually the same effect. There is much more at stake here than
urban planning.

Wendell Cox, Principal of the
Wendell Cox Consultancy in St. Louis, Missouri, is a former
Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Dr. Ronald D. Utt,
is Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for
Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Share

History could well show that shortly after ending red-lining, whichsuppressed minority home ownership rates, cities begangreen-lining, through imposition of growth areas, with virtuallythe same effect. There is much more at stake here than urbanplanning.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) says it's "a great way to start the day for any conservative who wants to get America back on track."

Sign up to start your free subscription today!

Sorry! Your form had errors:

About The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy research institute, with hundreds of thousands of individual, foundation and corporate donors. Heritage, founded in February 1973, has a staff of 275 and an annual expense budget of $82.4 million.

Our mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Read More